Better Angels
by raedbard
Summary: SLASH: A perfect metaphor: the legend of Tobias Ziegler, Samuel Seaborn and Josiah Bartlet, with discourse on the subject of better angels and the lies you tell to them. A less than divine comedy.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Better Angels  
**Author:** Raedbard  
**Fandom:**_The West Wing_  
**Pairing:** Get ready for this folks: Sam/Toby, Jed/Toby, Jed/Sam/Toby. In that order  
**Rating:** R  
**Word Count:** c. 6,700  
**Disclaimer:** I don't pretend to be Aaron Sorkin or John Wells. I just like to borrow their characters and make them do morally reprehensible things to each other.  
**Timeline/Spoilers** From pre-season 1 up to season 4. I'm going AU from S4's 'Election Night'. In this 'verse, someone other than Jed won the general election and Sam became the Congressman for the California 47th. It also assumes that Toby remembers the date of Rooker's appointment as AG (cf. 'Debate Camp') for a whole other reason than "I just do."  
**Summary:** A perfect metaphor: the legend of Tobias Ziegler, Samuel Seaborn and Josiah Bartlet, with discourse on the subject of better angels and the lies you tell to them. A less than divine comedy.

BETTER ANGELS

ACT I

"Sam, who's your favourite writer?"  
-- 'The Stackhouse Filibuster'

That was the night when Toby asked.

He asks with his eyes, of course, and with a stillness that fills him, magnifies him. The shadow he makes against his office wall and the dark reflection in the window glass seem to loom too large, as though he has suddenly gained an extra three inches in height. His eyes reflect the light as though wet, and are for Sam the one point of brightness in his face. His eyes reveal him proud, but he is asking just the same.

"My place?" Sam says.

"My place."

"Okay ... Meet you there?"

"No. Come with me."

"Toby ... "

"There's no-one here, Sam. It's okay."

"Okay," Sam says, thinking that they both know it is anything but. He follows anyway, and he is ashamed at the extra thrill which passes through his skin when Toby's hand brushes against his arm as the office door closes.

They are already lovers, have been for months, but they have never once been back to Toby's place because it is Andy's place too, and Sam knows that the Congresswoman, whilst she might not care a whole lot, would be able to smell Toby on his skin and feel the shadow of Toby's fingers in his palm when they shake hands. Sam has never wanted to take that chance and so the apartment is new to him. It feels torn, unreconciled. Darkness hides what Sam knows at once are Toby's corners, cordoned off from the light by a network of lamps and a few decorative candles which have never been lit. He has buried the glow with papers; briefing notes and legals pads, scraps of a speech still in longhand. Underneath a packet with the Presidential seal, hidden low in the gloom of the coffee table, Sam thinks he can see the spine of a small book; half pink, half blue: baby names.

"Where's Andy?" Sam asks, stumbling into what he hopes are the correct pleasantries, his voice coming out flat and muffled.

"Maryland."

"Oh."

"She's ... back in Maryland."

"Long trip? Not expecting her back - "

"Sam ... it's, it's okay. Really."

"It's not, really. But we're here, so ... " He shrugs, finding he doesn't know the right words to use in this conversation.

"Yeah," Toby says, in a voice so soft Sam has to strain to hear him. "We're here."

Toby watches him, though he is unable to keep Sam's eyes for more than a few moments. He runs his hand down along his tie, his fingers brushing its end repeatedly as though removing dust or crumbs.

"Toby, I don't ... I mean, I'm not sure if this is a good idea."

Toby continues to watch him, his face covered in shade.

"I ... Toby, you know - "

"Please," he says, the one soft word reaching Sam clearly.

"I just ... " Sam shrugs, again not sure what he should say.

"Please, Sam."

Sam nods, after a moment, and crosses into the darker part of the room where Toby is still standing. Sam moves close into him and reaches for Toby's hand, which does not grip his in return but stays heavy and unresponsive in his grasp. Sam puts his other arm tight around Toby's waist, tucking his hand up behind Toby's jacket and stroking his back.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Toby says, his voice now muffled by Sam's shoulder.

"Toby."

"I just need ... something, okay?" he says, moving out of Sam's hands.

"You wouldn't rather, you know, _talk_ about it?"

"Not really, no."

"Yeah, okay, stupid question."

Toby sighs. "Sam, can we just ...?" His hands gesture loosely, without a clear meaning.

Sam smiles, shrugs and catches Toby's hands on their way back to his pockets.

"Better?" Sam asks. Toby doesn't say anything, or give any other indication of his opinion, just pulls Sam through to his bed.

They don't know how to speak to each other tonight, so instead they sit on the edge of Toby and Andy's bed, kissing. Toby's body demands, his mouth full of silent insistence, but he never moves, so Sam has to start everything, carry every follow-through alone. When he pushes Toby gently down to the bed he feels no resistance and Toby's eyes have closed, his hands do not pull and press at Sam as they usually would; he is quiet.

Sam kisses him, trying to lose his misgivings in this his favourite, bar one, part of sex with Toby. Sam strokes his face with one hand, having almost to coax Toby into turning his head on the pillow. He sucks hard on Toby's lower lip, stroking his tongue there before slipping inside Toby's mouth: searching for something he can do to make him react, asking for a moan or a buck of the hips with his mouth and the hand that is parting Toby's thighs.

"Toby," he says, soft against Toby's cheek, "It's hard to do it right if you don't play along."

"I'm here."

"You're kinda just lying there."

He opens his eyes, reaches up and lays his hand to Sam's cheek, rubs his thumb across Sam's lower lip and slips it inside his mouth, pressing down on Sam's tongue. His other hand reaches between Sam's legs and squeezes.

"I'm playing along."

"Okay."

"Yeah."

"So ... ?"

"You're doing just fine."

"Toby."

He smiles, and it almost reaches his eyes. He turns towards Sam, propped on his elbow, and strokes the back of his index finger across Sam's cheek. Toby's face is impassive and his eyes seem darker as Sam follows their gaze: across his mouth, down between his opened shirt buttons, back up to Sam's eyes. Toby tries to smile again.

"Toby ... ?"

He shakes his head, tries for the smile a third time just as he reaches for Sam, bringing him close, kissing him. He keeps both palms to Sam's face and his pinky fingers stroke the sharp part of Sam's jaw, sending sensation running down his neck like a shiver of cold water, making him gasp against Toby's lips. His arms cushion the moans, the involuntary jerks that the press of his tongue elicit; Sam holds on.

Toby rolls them, slow and gentle, so that he is on top. He begins again at Sam's neck just as Sam opens his eyes. Sam feels his gut jump at this sight of Toby: head bent now and only broad shoulders in view. He reaches up and finds the curls at the back of Toby's head and can't help himself murmuring Toby's name into the air. Toby responds with another, shorter, kiss to Sam's mouth, and another tiny shake of the head.

He speeds up, stripping Sam of his shirt and undoing his own, pushing Sam back down to the bed when he raises his hands to help, raises his head to kiss Toby's chest. He slides his hand down to Sam's pants and pulls them off, swift and ungentle, grazing Sam's hips with his nails and the fabric. Sam cannot decide whether he feels loved in a narrow but obvious sense, or abused in a subtler. He decides he just wants to have Toby's skin against his own, have him slow down, have no air between them. So Sam stops, stiffens and opens his eyes, places his palm flat against Toby's chest; one stage short of pushing him away.

"What?" Toby asks, his voice low and unyielding.

"Just stop, okay? Slow down."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to?" Sam says, wondering if, with a concerted effort, he could sound more like a woman.

Toby laughs quietly. "Can't win with Princeton here," he says, under his breath and, as far as Sam can see, to no-one in particular.

"Toby ... "

"Yeah, okay." He shrugs, "We can do, you know, the thing. Whatever."

Sam raises an eyebrow at him, "You know, whatever else they might say about you Toby, let all note this: you are a true romantic."

"You want to do this or not?"

"_Yeah_. Just - take it easy is all."

Toby nods, smiles for all of a second, then lies back in his bed with his arms behind his head. He challenges more than he invites, but Sam goes to him anyway and puts his hands inside Toby's open shirt, beneath his undershirt. Sam rests his face to Toby's stomach and takes him in as both taste and smell. Toby's hands come up to his neck and his fingers stroke up through Sam's hair.

"Toby - "

"Don't say anything."

"You don't know what I was going to say."

"Yes, yes I do."

"I still like to say it sometimes."

"I know why you say it all the time and don't you think, if I were going to say it back, I would have done it by now?"

Sam shrugs, or tries to. "I still like to say it."

"I know you do," Toby says, quietly.

"It's nice."

"Sam ... "

"It's nice. It's important."

"Yeah, alright."

"I - "

"But ... don't say it."

"Okay."

"Get up here."

"Okay."

"This is, you know, fine. But ... we're guys here."

"Less talk, more ... of the other thing?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Sam says, grinning.

It all blurs after Toby starts kissing him again, after Toby's hands make their way back between Sam's thighs, and he does not know how it was done. He remembers Toby as a dark form below him, his eyes have hardened again, no longer bright but dull and black. Sam remembers the press of Toby's fingers into his waist as he came, a minute before Sam himself did. Toby wrapped his arms around Sam, pulled Sam's head down into his shoulder and kissed him, but he never said anything, Sam's almost sure of that.

Sam doesn't realise until the morning why he is here and Andy is not; why her ring is sitting in a bowl of change next to Toby's side of the bed and Toby's is still on his finger; why there is still so much darkness in the morning.

"Why didn't you tell me?' he asks, the tone of his voice somewhere between pity and exasperation.

"I figured you'd say no."

"Yeah, I would have."

Toby shrugs. "I know."

"Toby - "

"The best scenario I could think of was you getting me drunk in a bar someplace and tucking me in, and I can do that here just fine."

"You wanted a little more."

"Yeah."

"Well, isn't that just dandy."

"You were fine with fucking me while I still had a wife," Toby says, his voice low and flat. "But now, suddenly there's a little more of a grey area for you."

"I wouldn't call it fine, actually."

"Yeah? You're here, though."

"I can't say I'm enormously proud of that fact at the moment."

"No, of course you're not."

"I think maybe you want to have this particular fight with Andy. I'll see you at work."

Sam has already turned to go when he hears Toby say, "It's not like you to run away from a difficult debate, Sam."

"I'm not here to be your punching bag."

Toby's mouth twists into a sour smile, "That's the best you can do? I must have tired you out last night."

"I'm leaving now, Toby."

"It's a pity you never got to know Andy better, you two would've really got on."

"You know, Toby, there's a stage where this ... self pity thing, this melancholia, is rather poetic and there's a point at which it's just sad. Can you guess which stage you're at?"

"Seriously, Sam, has she been passing you notes or something?"

"I'm leaving now. I'll see you ... whenever."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Better Angels  
**Author:** Raedbard  
**Fandom:**_The West Wing_  
**Pairing:** Get ready for this folks: Sam/Toby, Jed/Toby, Jed/Sam/Toby. In that order  
**Rating:** R  
**Word Count:** c. 6,700  
**Disclaimer:** I don't pretend to be Aaron Sorkin or John Wells. I just like to borrow their characters and make them do morally reprehensible things to each other.  
**Timeline/Spoilers** From pre-season 1 up to season 4. I'm going AU from S4's 'Election Night'. In this 'verse, someone other than Jed won the general election and Sam became the Congressman for the California 47th. It also assumes that Toby remembers the date of Rooker's appointment as AG (cf. 'Debate Camp') for a whole other reason than "I just do."  
**Summary:** A perfect metaphor: the legend of Tobias Ziegler, Samuel Seaborn and Josiah Bartlet, with discourse on the subject of better angels and the lies you tell to them. A less than divine comedy.

BETTER ANGELS

ACT II

"You're a good man, you don't have to act like it."  
--'Hartsfield's Landing'

On Air Force One, the plane with two galleys and a fully-functional operating theatre, there are secret rooms. A President's bedroom, despite Jed's preconceptions about the matter, is not private; he wonders if he'd maybe get more peace if he hung a 'do not disturb' sign on the door, but somehow doubts it. So he is here, where there is only the likelihood of Leo or Charlie walking in on him, rather than the whole staff. And there's Toby of course, although since he is already in the bed with him, Jed feels the ship has sailed on that particular worry. The room, the private presidential boudoir which he has, until now, only shared with Abbey, lies still and silent in the dark. There are no windows and the door disappears into the wall, leaving blank panelling both inside and out. There is a lamp, the bedside table, which pulls out of the wall and rocks disturbingly under even the lightest touch, the clock, and the bed. Jed sits up in bed, the pressure of his skull against the panelling giving him a dull headache, and tries to remain still. He listens to Toby's breathing and tries not to hear his own; he lays one hand on top of the other and crosses his ankles beneath the sheets. About two square inches of the skin of Jed's hip touches Toby's back as it curves away from him; that skin hums in the dark, singing out Jed's secrets.

These are the secrets which two people, rather than the customary seventeen, know. Jed hopes that trust ventured will be trust mended, in time, but his hope is empty, crafted from Toby's moans and the moments of his release, undermined by the dark and searching stares that Jed catches after and before; stares that make clear the extent of trust. Toby is sleeping, silent but for his breathing, which makes an uneasy music in Jed's thoughts and though he can keep his hands off the man in his bed, Jed has never been able to stop thinking. Tonight his thoughts are full of unprofessional things, like the qualities of Toby's skin and the taste of his lips, neither of which Jed can describe to his own satisfaction, and what the low sigh containing Jed's name which came from Toby's indescribable lips at the moment of his climax might mean regarding his feelings for his lover. He cannot ask, and Toby could not tell him if he did; not in words anyway. And so Jed must rely on his much-vaunted powers of observational reasoning and deduction and, so far, two and two are coming up short of four.

Jed does not sleep - the memory of his release is too close around him and Toby's body not far enough. He watches instead, inclining his head towards Toby so that his cheek and the dark line of his brow is visible. Jed has to clasp his hands tight together in order to restrain his impulses; to stop his fingers going to Toby's hair, his thumb to the line of his beard, his flat palm to Toby's naked chest. Mouth follows hand, and so on into temptation, and temptation cannot be Jed's vice tonight.

Sometime in an hour which feels more like three, Toby wakes.

"Morning," Jed says, smiling like a pro.

A long pause and a stare before Toby answers, "Morning."

"It is morning, by the way. You slept a long while there, my friend."

"What time is it?"

"Just after five. Don't worry - I think Air Force One is probably one of the few places where you guys can get a good night."

"What gave you that impression?" Toby says, sitting up in the bed and looking around him for his clothes.

"It's my plane, Toby. My rules too. Your shirt and pants are over there."

"Thanks," he says, getting out of the bed and looking, to Jed, very self-conscious about it.

"Don't you want to stay, Toby?"

"Are you sure you meant that as a question?"

"Sure - I'd like you to stay, but I'm not going to order you to."

"Really."

"Toby! We're off-duty now, I'm not giving out executive directives."

"You're never off-duty," he says, soft and low, staring at his bare feet.

"Can't you trust me, Toby?"

"I serve at the pleasure of the President," he says, and slips into his pants.

"And if I ordered you," Jed says, his own voice now low and dangerous, "To get the hell back in my bed and go down on me, what would you say, Toby?"

Toby stands, his shirt still in his hands, the small neon light of the clock-face making a red glow across his chest. His hands and his face are still, his eyes hidden in shadow.

"I think you know what I would say, sir."

"Yeah," Jed says, from his empty bed. He watches as Toby puts on his shirt and fastens his tie around his collar in a loose knot, as he slips on his shoes, untied, and makes the two steps over to the secret door.

"But you would never order me to do that," Toby says, soft and low, before he opens the door and disappears from Jed's sight.

Jed manages an hour more of sleep, removed from the secret room and back in his own bed, before Charlie wakes him.

"Oh, Charlie. It can't possibly be morning yet."

"I'm afraid it is, Mr. President."

"Are we almost home?"

"Yes, sir. We touch down in half an hour."

"Okay."

"And Toby would like to see you, sir."

"Yeah, okay."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

Charlie disappears from his sight and Jed misses his presence immediately; he would have liked some guarantee against physical harm during what will no doubt be a delightful conversation with Toby. He hears Charlie telling Toby he can go in and feels a sudden compulsion to hide under his sheets or perhaps look for a weapon of some kind. Jed closes his eyes, pretends to be sleepy.

"Mr. President?"

"Good morning, Toby. At least, I'm assured it's morning by Charlie. I am less than convinced."

Toby smiles, "Yes, sir."

"Is there something you need, Toby?"

Toby closes the door, careful and quiet and without turning his back on Jed. Jed notices, though he tries very hard not to make anything of it, that Toby's tie is still loose, that his first two shirt buttons are still undone.

"Nothing of a professional nature, sir."

Jed meets his eyes, sits up straighter in his bed. "Then you don't have to call me 'sir', do you?"

Toby shrugs, rocks a little on the balls of his feet. "Well, yes actually, I do. But ... okay."

"Toby."

"I just wanted to see you, before we landed ... before - "

"Before we really do have to be professional again?"

"Yeah."

"But you and I, we're never off-duty."

Toby smiles, a little and not with his eyes. "Actually, I said that you were never off-duty, Jed."

"Nice juxtaposition, there, my friend."

He shrugs again, "I practice."

Jed smiles, "Yeah, I know."

"Did you sleep?" Toby asks, his voice so soft that Jed has to strain to hear him.

"No, not really. Think I fooled Charlie though."

"I hope you did."

"I almost hope I didn't; he's a good kid."

"Yeah."

"I'll be okay."

"Will you get some sleep after we get back to D.C.?"

"Nah - have to be President then."

"You pretty much have to do that all the time."

"So you keep telling me, Toby."

"I just ... I just want to, you know, make sure."

"I know."

"So you'll be okay?"

"Yes, Toby."

"Okay."

Jed raises his head, raises his voice too, "You've always had - you always will have the choice, you know, Toby."

"Yeah, I know."

"I don't try to manipulate you, and I'm sorry I lied - you know?"

"Yes."

"Can you stop being angry with me?" he asks, taking the words out of his mouth whilst they still have form.

Toby remains silent for what seems a long time to Jed. He stares at the floor, at his hands, then at Jed's mouth. He crosses the floor and sits, restlessly, on the edge of the bed. Jed has enough conscious thought left to note that, before he leans in to kiss him, Toby has closed his eyes. His face has softened in a delayed afterglow and his hands are gentle - one stroking Jed's throat, and one cupping his cheek. Toby's mouth whispers to him and gives him the silence back again, free of thought.

"We can't now," Toby says, in a voice low and rough.

"Later. On solid ground."

He nods, "Yeah." He rises from the bed, brushing his fingers over Jed's as he does so.

"Okay."

"Thank you, sir," he finishes, opening the door as he speaks.

"Thanks, Toby."

Later, back in D.C., during a day in which he hardly ventures from the Oval, Jed wins his daily round of the game of President. He begins to feel the rhythm of the day clearly at around half past ten and throughout the hours nothing slips from either hand or mind. Even the National Security briefing seems to have flown to a higher level of his comprehension, and since he counts not actually falling asleep through those happy hours as at least a draw, Jed reckons today's installment as no little victory.

He does not see Toby at all, only hears his voice twice, far-off, through the temporarily open doors of the Oval. Jed hears him too in the remarks handed to him by Sam in the late afternoon. Sam's words have been hustled and drilled by Toby's, yet there is deep and resounding gentility in the finished product - an easy, and beautiful, meld. Jed reads the couple of hundred words over twice before handing it back to Sam with a smile,

"It's fine, Sam. Nice."

"Thank you, sir," Sam says, understanding.

"Listen, tell Toby to come over later. When he's done. Okay?"

"Yes, sir."

"Really nice, Sam."

"Thank you."

"Now go away."

"Thank you, Mr President."

The sun is setting when Toby comes to him, his very white shirt glowing a little as he stands in the doorway to the Oval; he makes a dark shadow against the carpet, and Jed cannot quite see whether he is smiling or frowning because his face is covered in shadow, even as the sunset makes a half-halo around his curls.

"Sam said you liked the remarks."

"They were excellent."

"They were just remarks."

"Please don't bother trying to fool me that you think that, Toby."

Toby shrugs, noncommittal, and then steps further into the light.

"Come over to the Residence with me. Have some bourbon."

"Yes, sir," Toby says, his face impassive.

Jed smiles, and hopes to God that there are no secret cameras hidden in the Oval, or the Residence.

There is nothing but darkness in the third room. Jed uses it to disappear, cultivating a Presidential escape act wherein he becomes both less and more than his title, coming in and out of sight amid the shadows. Toby is a blacker shadow, on the edge of the bed until Jed pulls him closer and sets his lover's fingers to work on his shirt buttons. Darkness gives Toby no extra confidence: his hands are light - flying; smooth as they rest flat against Jed's chest; curious, aware of everything in time. Jed finds fascination in those hands.

They are slow together, provided no words are used. Speech creates urgency, and shows up the tricks in the vanishing act; two men defined by their voices must be silent tonight if they are to get anything done at all. Toby laughs a little and Jed hums a tune tunelessly; their moans they lose in each other - slicked across Toby's skin with the sweat and lost again against Jed's barrel chest.

Light shines behind Jed's closed eyes when the moment comes, and he hugs Toby close and long, pressing his hands deep into Toby's back, eating up the shadows and the air; remaking.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Better Angels  
**Author:** Raedbard  
**Fandom:** _The West Wing_  
**Pairing:** Get ready for this folks: Sam/Toby, Jed/Toby, Jed/Sam/Toby. In that order  
**Rating:** R  
**Word Count:** c. 6,700  
**Disclaimer:** I don't pretend to be Aaron Sorkin or John Wells. I just like to borrow their characters and make them do morally reprehensible things to each other.  
**Timeline/Spoilers** From pre-season 1 up to season 4. I'm going AU from S4's 'Election Night'. In this 'verse, someone other than Jed won the general election and Sam became the Congressman for the California 47th. It also assumes that Toby remembers the date of Rooker's appointment as AG (cf. 'Debate Camp') for a whole other reason than "I just do."  
**Summary:** A perfect metaphor: the legend of Tobias Ziegler, Samuel Seaborn and Josiah Bartlet, with discourse on the subject of better angels and the lies you tell to them. A less than divine comedy.

BETTER ANGELS

ACT III

"The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight."  
-- '20 Hours in America, pt. II'

"Sam!"

"Mr. President."

"You know, you can call me Jed now, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't think I'm ever going to."

Jed Bartlet, ex-President of the United States, laughs and slaps Sam on the arm.

"Okay. I may have to retaliate by indulging what is, at times, an over-developed taste for political nomenclature, Congressman Seaborn."

"I see your sense of whimsy hasn't suffered, sir."

"I do okay."

"Come in, Mr. President."

"Big house for a single man, Sam. Something you haven't mentioned?"

"No, sir, nothing like that. Just, you know - California."

"Ah, yes. I hear it takes a little getting used to."

Sam laughs, "Come on in, sir. Toby'll be anxious to see you."

"Now, that I really do doubt," Jed says, closing Sam's door behind himself.

"I've told him he has to be nice, sir. Don't worry."

Jed raises an eyebrow. "You think I can't take him?"

"Well ... "

"Because even though I may look less than the perfect athlete, beneath this cultivated and distinguished exterior lies the physique of a prize-fighter."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't humour me, Sam."

"No, sir."

"I heard all that you know." Toby says, standing in the doorway.

"Toby," Jed says, without inflection.

Toby nods slightly, shifting his glass of bourbon to his other hand. "Mr. President."

Jed smiles, "It's good to see you, Toby."

"And you, sir."

"As I mentioned to Sam, the servility can be knocked off at any time."

"I know."

Jed comes to Toby and embraces him, laughing. Sam notes that Toby, initially stiff, leans into the other man after a moment, his face close to Jed's shoulder. Toby's not smiling, of course, but Sam thinks he recognises his expression nevertheless and it gives him more than a moment of pause.

"So," Jed says, slapping Toby's arm, "Is there going to drinking, or do I have to suffer through your company a sober man?"

"I'll get you something, sir." Sam says, almost eager to be gone from the room, even if the drinks cabinet is only in the next one.

"Thanks, Sam."

The drink flows, as do the infamous Bartlet quizzes. Toby beats the quiz-master twice: once on figures of speech and again on the participants of obscure protest marches. Sam doesn't beat him at all. When the cards and poker antes come out he does a little better, winning fifty-six dollars from his former President and, by his count, twenty-three from Toby. But even so, Sam starts to hope, quite hard, that the chess set doesn't get broken out.

The President is in a light mood, Toby less so. Once they're finished with the poker, he sits in Sam's big armchair, nursing his whisky and listening to the President torture Sam with the revised edition of his National Park trivia. He seems to Sam to be disappearing into the shadows of the room. When Bartlet excuses himself for a moment, Sam says,

"Toby? You okay there?"

"Sure."

"You're kinda quiet."

"Yeah," Toby says, and though his face is shadowed, Sam can tell he has one eyebrow raised.

"It was good of you to come down, Toby. I appreciate it."

He nods. "I wanted to."

"I promise no, you know, sunlight of any kind this time. Although this is California, so it might be a little hard to arrange."

"There was sand in my shoes."

"Sorry?"

"Sand. In my shoes, for about a week, after we last visited."

"I promise, Toby, okay?"

"You like it here, don't you?"

"Yeah. It's good to feel like maybe you're handling bigger stuff; helping."

"_Bigger_ stuff?"

"Toby."

"Sorry.

"I made a promise, Toby."

"You weren't meant to win."

"That's perhaps a little harsh, Toby," Jed says, from the doorway. He comes back into the room and sits back down, re-filled glass in hand. He smiles at Toby.

"He's going to say something ridiculous now. You ready?"

"I think what Toby means to say is that he misses you, Sam."

"He's been pulling this crap a lot in the last few months."

"And now Toby is finally in a position to give his honest opinion. I retract my earlier statement on the subject of servility, by the way."

"You've added psychiatry to your accomplishments now?"

"Can't take your own medicine, Toby?"

"Have I ever given any indication of being able to do that?"

"Not especially, no," Sam says.

"Sam's with me." Jed says, smiling.

"Yeah. There's no loyalty."

"I missed you too, big guy."

"There's beer, right?"

"It's not like I never saw you all."

"I hate that guy you stuck me with."

"Well, you never have to see him again now," Sam says. "Sorry, Mr. President."

"No, no, Sam. We're all must come to terms with loss in our own way."

"You are two of the biggest freaks I have ever met," Toby says, from his armchair.

"Sam, we must get plaques made at once."

Sam laughs at that, "Yes, sir - absolutely."

It is much later that Toby comes to him: a little knock on his bedroom door shifts him out of what had been a light sleep, he opens his eyes to a restless silhouette standing in his doorway.

"Toby."

He comes in, silent. He sits on the edge of Sam's bed and turns on the bedside lamp and smiles a little when he looks at Sam in the light,

"You look like shit."

"I was sleeping."

Toby smoothes out a patch of Sam's hair which is standing up from his head with two fingers, then touches Sam's cheek.

"I'm sorry."

"For the rudeness?"

"If you insist."

"You definitely grown, Toby."

"Your tan looks fake. Just so you know."

Sam laughs and sits up in bed, resting his leg against Toby's back. "It is good to see you, Toby."

"Yeah. You too."

"You really hate Will?"

Toby shrugs, noncommittal. "He's okay."

"I'm sorry I had to leave, Toby."

"You promised. And, being you, that would be something you feel to be important and worth following through on."

"True."

"It's over now anyway."

"It's a good legacy, Toby. We did okay."

"I'm not sure he thinks that."

"He's the guy in the office. He has to stand up next to Washington and Lincoln and be counted, of course he doesn't think that."

"Yeah."

"Has he been, you know ... okay?"

Toby looks up at him, his eyes dark. "Yeah. Fine - he's ... fine."

"Toby, have you and the President - and it's hard to accept that I'm actually saying these words - have you ever had a sexual relationship with him?"

"Excuse me?"

"I'm serious, Toby."

"Where the hell did that come from?"

"I happen to know the signs."

"In your deranged mind, perhaps."

"I'm not stupid, Toby."

"I know." He sighs. "Until now it hasn't been such a drawback."

"Did you?"

"Yeah," he says, very quietly.

"So, all that stuff you said - well, preached and promised, actually - to me about not being gay was bull."

"No," he says, making the point with his hands as well as his words. "I'm not ... I'm not - that."

"I mean, I knew it was bull at the time, I just thought maybe you'd moved on as well."

"I was married, Sam."

"Yes."

"There were also, contrary to what I feel sure must be popular opinion, women before Andy."

"I'm sure there were, Toby. But there was also, apparently, Jed Bartlet. And me."

"Yes."

"I don't suppose I can really say 'why didn't you tell me' without being on the receiving end of sarcasm?"

"That would be correct."

"So you just thought you'd commit a huge breach of professional ethics instead?"

"Yeah. Since it's not actually anybody else's business I thought I'd do what I like."

"What about the President?"

"He makes his choices, Sam."

"And what about Abbey?"

Toby stays silent at that, and stares at his hands.

"Toby?"

"Are you sure you don't mean to say, 'what about me', Sam?"

"I'm pretty sure I don't mean that, no."

"It didn't last long."

"How come?"

"It was kinda like Andy, really. We couldn't stop arguing."

"Figures."

"Abbey knew."

Sam nods, "Yeah. She would."

"Not a conversation I ever want to think about again."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Does the President know that we ..."

"Not because I told him."

"I think he might."

"I feel like you should maybe stop being so blasé with your use of the word 'think' tonight."

"You think he was trying to, you know, get us back together or something tonight? All that stuff about you missing me?"

"Yeah, that's ... likely."

"I think he might be worried about you."

"Why? No - don't tell me."

"It's a lifeboat."

"Do you float?"

"Under the right circumstances."

Toby sighs when Sam kisses him, heavy where Sam is light, he leans his shoulder against Sam's chest, turning only his head for the kiss. Sam finds one hand, folded in the other between Toby's legs, and holds on. He pulls Toby by that hand, backwards into the bed and the light, so that he can see too.

It is several minutes before the creak of the door comes, and neither of them hear it.

"I really must try to knock, or at least find a keyhole to peer through before I even think about opening a door in future."

"Mr. President!" Sam says, spluttering a little.

"You had that set up, didn't you?" Toby says, his hand still in Sam's.

"I'm not completely gone, Toby."

"And yet ... "

"Sir, I - "

"Don't worry Sam, no need to explain. This is your house and your business."

"He thinks you're trying to," Toby pauses, but can't find a less humiliating phrase, "Get us 'back together'."

"It's an idea," Jed says, smiling.

"Not jealous then?" Toby says.

"I must say, Sam," Jed says, ignoring Toby, "Your powers of deduction have really come on in leaps and bounds. Does Congress pay for classes or something?"

"They would be quite reluctant, sir." Sam says, getting his voice back. "You know what Congress is like."

"Thankfully not very well."

"You didn't answer my question," Toby says.

"No, I'm not jealous. It's been a while after all. But I do have another idea."

"Besides trying to get us back together?" Sam asks.

"Besides finally giving into whatever bizarre form of dementia will eventually carry you off?"

"I'm a liberal guy, you both know that about me."

"Yes, sir."

"What was it Ritchie said?" Toby says, under his breath.

"And I'm open-minded, probably a little more so than Sam at least had realised."

"You're a very modern man, sir."

"Dementia notwithstanding?" Jed says, still smiling. "Listen guys, what we're going to do, I want you to think of it as a male-bonding ritual."

"I beg you, by everything we have ever held holy, not to go on with that thought."

"What's your plan, sir?"

"I'm not sure 'plan' would be my word, Sam."

"He's a lunatic. I have said this before."

"You mean ...?"

"Yes, Sam."

"Oh."

"'Oh' is right."

"Toby, just shut up for a minute."

"Jed, there isn't enough alcohol in_ America_!"

"Actually, Toby," Jed says, his hands in his pockets, "I think you have the easy part."

"The easy part?"

"Sure. You know Sam, you know me -"

"In the Biblical sense," Sam puts in.

"Quite. So you're just being candy-assed about this whole thing."

"Was that intentionally horrible wording?"

"You tell me there, Yoda. I'm just an old guy in a bathrobe."

"But you do have a certain amount of gravitas, sir, even so."

"Sam, I really meant what I said about the ass-kissing."

"Could we _please_ stop with the punning!"

Jed holds up his hands, "It was just lying there."

California is too bright for him, but Toby is glad that he can't quite see; something that he cannot watch is happening in this room.

The morning sunlight shines heavy on Sam's face as Jed comes to him and touches his cheek, gentle. Toby makes himself watch Sam bow his head into that touch, close his eyes as Jed's fingertips move to his mouth and stroke there, impossibly light. Toby can hear Sam's breathing from across the room.

He slips off his shoes, unties his tie, loosens his first two shirt buttons. He smoothes down his hair, swipes two fingers through his beard, takes a sip of whisky and then a much larger swig. When he looks up they are kissing, and he wishes he could jump out the window to the carefully manicured lawn, three storeys below. He can hear Jed whispering but cannot make out the words.

He unbuttons his shirt completely, but cannot bear to take it off. He wipes his hands on his pants leg, wishing that the room was dark and not full of dawn light. He is diminished and unused, a shadow in the corner.

"Toby?"

Sam's lips are wet, they shine.

"You gonna ... you know?"

"Toby?" Jed says, his voice level.

"Am I welcome?" Toby says, equally level, and low; his words almost buried in the folds of his shirt.

"You really do have the easy part, Toby," Jed answers, smiling. He holds out a hand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** Better Angels  
**Author:** Raedbard  
**Fandom:** _The West Wing_  
**Pairing:** Get ready for this folks: Sam/Toby, Jed/Toby, Jed/Sam/Toby. In that order  
**Rating:** R  
**Word Count:** c. 6,700  
**Disclaimer:** I don't pretend to be Aaron Sorkin or John Wells. I just like to borrow their characters and make them do morally reprehensible things to each other.  
**Timeline/Spoilers** From pre-season 1 up to season 4. I'm going AU from S4's 'Election Night'. In this 'verse, someone other than Jed won the general election and Sam became the Congressman for the California 47th. It also assumes that Toby remembers the date of Rooker's appointment as AG (cf. 'Debate Camp') for a whole other reason than "I just do."  
**Summary:** A perfect metaphor: the legend of Tobias Ziegler, Samuel Seaborn and Josiah Bartlet, with discourse on the subject of better angels and the lies you tell to them. A less than divine comedy.

BETTER ANGELS

EPILOGUE

"Sagittarius."  
-- '18th and Potomac'

A handshake had sealed it, over coffee and bagels the next morning. Not that the pact is really required of course -Toby finds it very hard to believe that rumours about an liaison between an ex-President, a Californian Congressman and a washed-up political advisor would be taken seriously, but stranger things may somewhere have happened, and it's better to be safe.

He forgives them both in time. He forgives Jed's mouth against Sam's stomach and the way Sam blushed when Jed stroked his hair and stole a line about better angels that Sam hadn't been around for the first time around. Time makes it a little easier to remember, with acceptance if not ease, the way Jed's hair fell around his face in sweat-made strands, how his cheeks went red and his eyes laughed, happy and light.

He sees Sam more than he does Jed, who still has half the business of the Presidency without trouble of the actual title - Toby has the invitation to the dedication of the Josiah Bartlet Library in his hand even now. Sam's coming, he's going to pick Toby up on his way up to New Hampshire.

Sam is a different memory - still starched and ridiculous even out of his clothes, taking the neatness everywhere he goes, including the bed. He had smoothed and petted, passed his fingers through Jed's hair and Toby's beard and then kissed them both, in equal measure. He hid his nervousness and bit his tongue on every 'sir' and shivered under Jed's hands as he had under Toby's the first time.

Toby makes himself drink another mug of coffee: it's a long way to New Hampshire and Sam will want to talk the route through with him while he drives. Toby will want to kill himself, but that's beside the point. He looks at his watch, smoothes down his tie.

He hadn't thought it was the easy part, even though Jed coaxed him and Sam soothed him. He ends up with both of them all over him, every sense awake to Sam's mouth and Jed's fingers, and nothing to do but figure out how to let go. He lay on in his side and felt unfair to whoever was behind him, irritation towards the guy who pulled him round, infatuation for the man who kissed him last. Jed made him come and his cry got lost between Sam's lips and Toby had kept his eyes closed - scared of what he might wake up to.

There's a knock on his door precisely when he had been told to expect it, and when he opens it Sam looks not like a man who has just driven to New York from California, but like a guy who stopped off at a Chinese laundry and didn't bother to get out of his clothes before he handed them over to be pressed. Even his hair is immaculate.

"Hey," Sam says.

"Hey."

"You ready there?"

"Sure."

"Got your stuff?"

"We're going for one night, Sam. How much stuff do I really need?"

"Pays to be thorough. Floss, for instance, is a pivotal item in my suitcase."

"How do you have time for this?"

"Organisational skills, my friend. Many years in the making."

"Yeah."

Sam nudges him, conspiratorially, "And I brought condoms too."

"I am going to absolutely pretend I did not hear that."

"Missed you," he says, closing Toby's door whilst they are still on the inside.

"I didn't hear that either."

"Give me a kiss."

"You're really never going to grow up, are you?"

Sam just smiles, easy and light. A stray beam of New York sun - and Toby doesn't know where _that_ came from today - catches his hair as he stands in front of the glass panel in Toby's door. He reaches out for Toby's hands and pulls him into the light and embraces him, all gentle mouth and one hand up inside Toby's jacket, stroking his back.


End file.
